


look at where we've been (through time)

by kissmeinnewyork



Series: it feels like heaven to me [2]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, First Date, Fluff, Humor, Kissing, Romance, and kissing, there's an aquarium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 14:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissmeinnewyork/pseuds/kissmeinnewyork
Summary: “You look beautiful,” Chloe answers matter-of-factly. Beca’s heart stops. “I just think—like, sometimes you need telling. That you are. Beautiful, I mean. I don’t think you believe it.” Beca hates dating, or maybe she doesn't hate dating. Maybe she just hates every date she's been on before she met Chloe.





	look at where we've been (through time)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this one kind of got away from me....but i love it. the prompt was a bechloe first date and this is exactly it. kudos and comments all appreciated xx
> 
> (send me prompts at ohbecamitchell.tumblr.com)
> 
> ooh the title is also from a song called 'your life over mine' by bry if ur interested

“Is it possible to actually, like, shit yourself from nerves?”

Beca scrutinises her reflection in the bedroom mirror for about the millionth time in the last hour, checking and double checking that she’s put enough concealer on that _giant fucking_ zit that’s magically appeared overnight, _quelle surprise._ Maybe she should burst it. Would bursting it make it better or worse?

“Yeah,” Amy replies from across the room, flicking another page in her copy of _Extreme Fishing._ Beca stares back at her in the mirror, horrified. “Wait—did I say yes? I meant no. I definitely meant no. That’s happened to nobody, ever.”

Beca doesn’t exactly feel reassured. “Jesus Christ. What if I shit myself?”

“Wear extra absorbent underwear.”

“Amy, I’m going on a _date._ I’m wearing my sexiest underwear.”

“By _sexiest underwear,_ do you mean your boxer shorts with the little dog faces on them? Because I’ve rummaged through your stuff enough times by now to know that they’re literally the only kind you own, you turnip.”

Okay, so that’s another thing she needs to add to her list of inappropriate things Fat Amy does to Beca’s shit when she’s not paying attention. Beca opens her mouth, but no words seem to come out. This happens a lot around Amy. She’s actually run out of reactions. Her jaw swings open and closed like a door on a loose hinge, until Amy _finally_ looks up from her weird magazine.

“What?” Amy shrugs, “If you do want _actual_ sexy underwear, ask Stacie. She gave me some great catalogs. The stuff is really cheap and _barely_ worn. Honestly. The elasticity in this thong I got was pretty—“

“Please be quiet,” Beca interjects quickly, deciding to terminate that line of enquiry immediately, because _the elasticity of Amy’s dodgy thongs_ is not something she wants to hear about right now. Suddenly self-conscious, Beca looks under the waistband of her tights, wondering what underwear she’s actually thrown on. “And for your information, my pants actually have cat faces on them today, so…”

“Oh, even worse,” Amy says dramatically, faceplanting her bedspread. “Nobody likes cats, Beca.”

Beca sticks her tongue out to Amy in her reflection. “Nobody likes you.”

“That right? I’m sure if you talked to Philippe, aged twenty-four, from Illinois, because that dude _really_ liked those photos I sent him—“

“Can you actually speak like, one sentence without grossing me out?” Beca says exasperatedly. She tugs at where her shirt tucks into her skirt, wondering if it looks better in or out, or whether it fucking matters at all what she’s wearing. She’s never cared all that much before. “Anyway—who the _fuck_ from Illinois has a name like Philippe?”

“I think he had a fetish for French stuff,” Amy says, like that’s totally normal, “He kept trying to get me to do weird things with garlic and this one time he sent me this video of him eating a snail. Like, a wild, free-range snail he’d found in the street.”

“That’s _insane!”_

“I know, right?” Amy seems to agree, “I was like, _dude,_ but some seasoning on it at least!”

There’s silence, because Beca’s lost enough of her sanity already, and she’d ideally like to keep some of it intact for the rest of the evening. She decides to leave the shirt loose and wanders back over to her side of the room, reaching out for her phone. At the top of her notifications tray there’s a snapchat from Chloe. With a half-smile, Beca swipes it open.

It’s a picture of Chloe. Specifically, Chloe’s newly-shaved legs in a pair of the sexiest, patent-leather stilettos she’s ever seen, and Beca almost has a gay heart attack right there and then. The caption reads _just for you!!!_ with alternating heart and fire emojis—god, she’s so fucking _whipped,_ and it’s just the _first date._ God knows what she’s going to be like when she actually sees Chloe in person.

“You’ve got that face on.”

Beca’s cheeks flush bright pink as she quickly shuts off her phone and throws it on the nightstand. She pats her hair, trying to make it look like everything’s totally normal and not like she almost had an orgasm looking at a freaking photograph. “What are you talking about?”

“That face I always pull whenever Philippe sends me a pic of his huge French dick. Sort of like…” Amy opens her mouth wide, her eyes inflating twice their normal size, a hand pressed on her heart for effect. “You’ve got that face on. Has ginger sent you a tit-pic?”

“What?” Beca squeaks, “No!”

“Oh my god, has she sent you a cli—“

Beca throws a pillow at Amy to silence her, who takes the shot like a champ, collapsing onto her bed a la being-shot-by-a-flying-burrito style. “Dude. If you say one more word, I’m hacking into your email and cancelling your _Extreme Fishing_ subscription.”

“Feel free,” Amy shrugs. She rolls up her copy and expertly aims it into the trash, where it sits amongst tampon wrappers and unfinished classwork. “I was ripped off. That magazine has nothing in it about how to fool stupid old men into thinking you’re a part-time Victoria’s Secret model and trauma surgeon online and loads about how to entice carp using natural bait. What the fuck?”

Beca nervously pads back over to the mirror, where the aforementioned zit is currently throbbing painfully and looks way redder than it did a few minutes ago. She groans loudly. “Oh my god. I look a mess. This is the first date I’ve had in months in and my whole body is totally not co-operating.”

Amy sighs, finally moving her ass from her bed and walking up to behind where Beca stands. “For the record, I don’t think you have to worry about what you look like whatsoever.”

“Really?”

“I mean, yeah, that zit on your chin is about the size of Pluto,” she supplies unhelpfully, “But Chloe doesn’t care about that shit. She only cares about seeing you—she’s mushy like that. You could rock up in a garbage bag and she’d be like _wow, that bitch is hot, I wanna bang her right now._ ”

Beca smiles a little. Sure, Amy’s not the most eloquent of speakers when it comes to relationships and emotions and all that, but it does make her feel a bit better about the whole thing. She does have stupid underwear on and a huge spot and a ladder in her tights but Chloe has seen her at four am, vomiting over the toilet after slamming too much tequila. She’s seen her sobbing into a milkshake in the middle of the day after breaking up with Jesse. She’s seen her during finals week when she didn’t wash her hair for a whole seven days. That girl has seen her at rock bottom, yet still wants to take her messy, uncoordinated ass on a _date._

“But, Beca,” Amy suddenly says in a real solemn tone, tearing her away from her thoughts, “You _have_ to let me pop that zit.”

Beca darts away from Amy’s vicinity like that superhero from one of those stupid comicbook films Jesse loved—you know, the one with the silver hair that runs really fucking fast, but she can’t remember the name because her head is full of way more important stuff than _superheroes_ —and throws her hand up, grabbing a hockey stick (that belongs to neither her or Amy) and using it as a makeshift cattle prod as Amy follows her around the room like a serial killer.

“You,” Beca swipes at her with the hockey stick, “Are not going _anywhere_ near my face.”

“Come on, Beca, I’ve watched so many YouTube videos on it, I can pop them like a _pro—“_

“I’m leaving in literally ten minutes. I’m not letting you and your huge monster hands anywhere near my tiny face.”

“What will hurt more—me popping that zit right now for no payment, or Chloe’s look of horror when she sees the start of a mountain range emerging across your chin?”

“You just said she wouldn’t care!”

“Let’s face it, you’d have to be _blind_ not to care about a zit that size and Chloe happened to mention to me the other day that she has perfect twenty-twenty vision. On her driving test she read a sign from a whole mile away, unbelievable, right?”

“Amy, that’s bullshit, you—no! NO! GET AWAY FROM MY FACE! _HOLY SHIT, AMY!”_

-x-

The whole date thing actually was unintentional. As in Beca didn’t start the day thinking she’d end it securing a date with Chloe Beale. Even though that wasn’t, like, something she thought about pretty much all the time or anything.

They’re sat on the balcony that juts out of Chloe’s attic room, their legs dangling into the abyss, watching as the hazy orange sky blurs into black. Chloe’s just been on her eighth unsuccessful Tinder date of the new year and Beca wonders why she keeps going back to that fucking app, especially when there’s so many people she encounters in her day-to-day that are actually kind-of nice and not ugly or creepy that would be desperate to date her and treat her like she deserves. Because she _does._ Deserve better. Much better than weird thirty-year-old cashiers with BO and a penchant for rushed sex in uncomfortable places.

“And then he got his dick out,” Chloe says dramatically, complete with hand gesture to make sure Beca completely understands, “Like, right there, in the middle of the restaurant?”

Beca snorts, taking a sip of beer. She passes the bottle to Chloe, who takes a generous swig, wiping her top lip. “Men are weird.”

“They are,” Chloe agrees, nodding sagely, “They totally are. Maybe I should swear off them. Go on a man detox or something.”

“Not a bad idea,” Beca says, like her motives aren’t totally selfish, “It’s kind of what I’ve done. After, you know, Jesse. I just swore off everything.”

Chloe sighs softly. Her arm reaches out and wraps round Beca’s shoulder and she finds herself melting into her, warm and soft jarring with the cold night air. “Still hurting about that, huh?”

“Not really. It’s just—I don’t think I’ve ever been on a good date, and that really put me off? I don’t know what’s wrong with me half the time. Because Jess—he was really nice and considerate and actually liked me, but every time we went out there was this voice going _we could just do all this at home_.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Chloe states plainly, resolutely. She takes another drink. “What floated his boat sank yours. You were stranded at the harbor while he sailed off. You’re the captain of your own ship, Becs. And maybe you didn’t have room for another sailor.”

Beca murmurs a laugh at the excessive nautical metaphors, but Chloe’s always like this when she’s a bit drunk, verbal diarrhoea all over the place. It’s adorable. “But I _do_ want another sailor on my, uh, boat?”

(It’s really too bad that Chloe’s looking over the balcony and down onto the lawn, because then she would’ve seen the conviction Beca looks at her with, like she’s the only person in the whole wide world that Beca would even dream of being with right now and any time ever. They’re surrounded by stars and Beca’s fucking looking at _her_ like she’s the brightest of them all, and Beca can’t believe what a sap she’s becoming.)

“Maybe you just need a good date,” Chloe says, “And I’m, like, the _queen_ of dating.”

Beca suddenly sits up, narrowing her eyes a little. “Is this you asking me out?”

Chloe shrugs, trying to hide her smile and failing catastrophically, because maybe this is the point she’s always wanted to reach too. “Sure. And it’ll be the best date in the world, I can assure you.”

Beca laughs, a delirious and slightly drunken giggle in the back of her throat. She clamps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I just can’t believe that this is happening.”

Chloe grins, leaning across and pressing a sloppy kiss to Beca’s cheek. Warmth explodes in Beca’s chest and she fights the urge to kiss her back, while she’s in this happy drunken bubble, because she’ll so regret it a few hours later when the buzz has worn off and she’s lying in bed, mapping the cracks in the ceiling.

“You’re my favourite captain,” Chloe says, her words slightly slurred, “You’d be such a bad-ass pirate. I can totally imagine you with a hat and a parrot and those big puffy pants all pirates wear.”

“You’re my favourite captain too,” Beca murmurs, “Because, like, there can be more than one captain.”

(The conversation has kind of lost its way, but it’s nice, and Beca would’ve stayed out there all night drinking beer with Chloe Beale if it didn’t start freaking raining seconds later. Fucking bitch weather always out to kill her vibe. And she totally does not scream that at the sky or anything.)

-x-

Chloe picks her up at seven thirty. Which is weird, considering they live in the same house.

“You didn’t need to ring the bell,” Beca says incredulously, Chloe stood on the doorstep. She’s wearing an off-the-shoulder floral dress that cuts just above her knees, a denim jacket and the same shoes from the photograph she sent earlier. She’s a fucking _goddess._ “You literally live here. You have keys.”

“I know, but the thought of someone picking me up for a date always gets me really excited, you know?” Chloe says, “I mean the surprise is kind of spoiled because you already know which car I drive, but I do have a brand new playlist I created on Spotify in preparation, and that kind of thing gets you way more excited than cars do.”

Admittedly, Beca is curious, and the effort is really touching so she lets the initial weirdness slide. “As long as there isn’t any Taylor Swift, I’m totally yours, dude.”

Chloe lifts her head. “I can’t promise that. She does have some non-breakup songs that completely fit the occasion. You look beautiful, by the way.”

The compliment is so honest and pure that it knocks some of the air out of Beca’s lungs, because Chloe just called her _beautiful,_ and it’s the first time in a long time that she’s heard that from someone who actually means it (and who she wants to mean it). Chloe just called her beautiful on their doorstep in the most normal day in March, with a giant red splodge on her chin where Amy admittedly popped her zit successfully, and Beca wonders if she might end up remembering this day for the rest of her goddamn life.

“You look great too,” Beca says, which is an understatement, but whatever. “Now, where are you taking me?”

It turns out Chloe has booked a table at a really posh restaurant in the city, which makes Beca feel a little uncomfortable because she’s the kind of girl who is happier with takeaway pizza and sweatpants, but she trusts Chloe and her instincts. They end up at the top of a really tall building surrounded by glass and from their table they can see across the whole of Atlanta, beautiful and illuminated by artificial light. Before she sits Beca presses a hand against the window, waving at the world below.

“You like it?” Chloe asks, standing next to her. Their reflections blur, merging into one another, like for a moment they’re the same person. “Someone I used to work with recommended it to me. Told me it was like you were on top of the world.”

Beca grins; she’s on top of the world, but it’s not all because of the view.

-x-

Surprisingly, Beca doesn’t actually hate the date. For brief, dark seconds she imagines Jesse is the one sat in the chair opposite and her stomach turns, tangled with nerves, scared she’s going to do the wrong thing or say something stupid or embarrass herself in front of her boyfriend. But she blinks and there’s Chloe, grinning and talking madly, and she’s not anxious at all.

(Fuck you, Amy. Shitting has been avoided, absorbent underwear aside.)

They do cute couple-y things like hold hands across the table and share dessert and make other diners uncomfortable. It doesn’t bother her. It’s not new knowledge to her that some people are yet to be dragged into the twenty-first century. She lets Chloe chat the evening away, because listening to Chloe talk is like her favourite song over and over and over again.

When the waiter drops the extortionate bill Beca doesn’t want the night to end. Luckily, Chloe has no plans to.

“Do you wanna see something awesome?” she says, lips curled into a mischievous smile, and Beca would be a grade A idiot to say no to something like that.

“Oh, absolutely.”

-x-

Apparently Chloe knows the security guard who watches over the Atlanta Aquarium. All she does is flutter her eyelashes at the guy stood at the front desk while she’s outside and the doors creak open, letting the two of them in. She grabs Beca’s hand and pulls her through corridors of eerie, dark tanks, illuminated by pale blue lights. She finally stops at a tank that takes over a whole back wall, fish of all shapes and sizes and colours drifting together right in front of them. It’s completely silent, other than the whirr of filters, bubbles rising to the surface.

“For the record,” Beca says, quiet and breathless, “This is the kind of shit that only ever happens in John Green novels.”

“I love John Green novels,” Chloe replies, and when Beca turns, she’s somehow fished a whole bottle of rose wine from somewhere in her jacket. Beca just shakes her head out of disbelief. “Want to get drunk in an aquarium with me?”

Beca untwists the cap, taking the first drink. “As if you even had to ask that question.”

They sit down on the floor a few meters away from the glass and pass the bottle between them, toes of their shoes touching the tank. Beca watches as a fish doused in bronze swims out in front of them, face touching the glass. She lazily points out in front of them. “That one looks like you.”

Chloe snorts. “What, because it’s red?”

“Yeah. It’s red. Like you.”

“In that case,” Chloe leans out, clumsy fingertip landing where a near-microscopic fish internally lit up by a flash of electric blue sits unmoving. “That one looks like you.”

“Well, it’s a good job I’m no longer sensitive about height jokes. You lose.”

Chloe brings the bottle to her lips, taking a sip before speaking. “You know… I meant what I said earlier.”

Beca brushes a strand of her hair away from her face. “About what?”

“That you look beautiful,” Chloe answers matter-of-factly. Beca’s heart stops. “I just think—like, sometimes you need telling. That you are. Beautiful, I mean. I don’t think you believe it.”

Beca half-remembers some line Jesse used on her in freshman year, something about being halfway to his standard of beautiful, and how it didn’t really bother her at the time but after the breakup it kind of gnawed at her, like she was the person she is now because of him and what she thought he wanted. But Chloe… she’s never expected her to be anything, to look like anything. She just wants her to be _Beca,_ whether that’s with the earspike or not, and maybe it took her too long to realise that. Jesse was nice, sure. But there was always this extra layer of expectation with him. Like—she wasn’t quite perfect, to him, and he was trying his hardest to make her that way.

She doesn’t want to be the perfect girlfriend. She likes being messy and nervous and a bit out of control, sometimes. And Chloe gets that. Chloe has always got that.

Beca takes a long drink, refusing to meet Chloe’s eye. She watches the fish, a beautiful, messy rainbow of colours and movement, and how that’s a bit like the Bella’s, this crazy group of crazy girls that somehow all _work._ “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about—what would’ve happened to me, if you’d never violated me in the showers that day. Like where would I be right now, without the Bella’s? And without… well, you.”

Chloe shrugs nonchalantly, but Beca feels her shoulders tighten. “I don’t know, Becs. I don’t tend to dwell on _what ifs._ I like the here and now.”

Beca smiles into the bottle. “Yeah, I mean, the here and now is pretty good.”

“Yeah?” Chloe smiles back. Her feet reach out, her toes tapping against Beca’s. “I think it’s pretty good too.”

-x-

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Go for it, dude.”

“I was… really nervous about tonight. Like, really nervous.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. Totally skitzing it. I rang up Aubrey in a total panic. Luckily she knocked some sense into me. You know what she’s like.”

“…What did Aubrey say? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“She said _get a grip Chloe, this is Beca Mitchell we’re talking about, she might think she’s God’s gift but she’s really not that special.”_

“ _Geez._ She doesn’t live and let die, does she?”

“No, no, but—she also said that out of everyone, she’d never seen anyone make me so happy, so you mustn’t be all bad. Mostly, but not all.”

“…I make you happy?”

“Of course you do, weirdo. Before you rolled into my life there was, like, a huge Beca-shaped hole in it. Only I didn’t realise it was Beca-shaped at the time, but if I had that would’ve been a really weird coincidence, right?”

“Huh. Yeah. Right.”

-x-

(It’s weird, because there’s always been a hole in Beca’s life too, and it’s the kind of hole that’s made her feel completely and utterly empty for so many years, and when Jesse didn’t fill it she thought there was something seriously wrong with her. But then Chloe—she slipped in so effortlessly Beca didn’t even realise, and it knocks her for six, because an actual person has made her feel actually complete for once in her turbulent life and it happened so naturally that it passed her by, passed her perfectly, and everything is suddenly _right_.)

-x-

They finish the night where it all started. On Chloe’s balcony.

The wine is long gone but Beca knows where Jessica hides her secret stash (in the gap behind the fridge, FYI, she’s really not that stupid, Jess) so she brings back two full bottles, drops one in Chloe’s lap. She has no idea where the rest of the girls are but there’s music, bassy and loud, coming from the Treble’s House—a party she’s missing out on, perhaps, not that she cares.

“I think I’ve realised something,” Beca says, plonking herself down next to Chloe, their knees touching. Chloe lifts her head up as if to say _oh?_ “Yeah. I don’t think I actually hate dating.”

“Oh!” Chloe squeals excitedly, “Have I officially converted you?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Beca says, killing Chloe’s high with a grin when she looks like a wounded puppy, “No, it was great, I loved it. But—I’m thinking, maybe it wasn’t the dating I hated? Maybe it was the… company, I wasn’t happy with.”

Chloe grins quietly, staring down at her knees, where Beca’s hand rests on her own. Her fingers reach across, cover them, and Beca clings on like a lifeline. “What about now?”

“This company,” Beca says, raising their intertwined hands, studying them carefully like she’s working them out. She nods resolutely. “I think this company is kind of alright.”

It would be just wrong for Chloe _not_ to lean across and kiss her.

-x-

“By the way, that picture you sent me was, like, _smoking_ hot.”

“Oh, you liked it?”

“Chlo, Amy thought I was looking at _porn,_ that’s how much I liked it.”

“Well… there’s plenty more where that came from.”

“There better be. You know I’m only dating you for sexy photos, right?”

“Yeah. Totally. I knew that was a given the minute I asked you out.”

“Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page. It would be a bit embarrassing if we weren’t.”

“Good.”

“Awesome.”

“Cool.”

“…Should we kiss again?”

“That sounds like a great plan.”

“Awesome.”


End file.
